LAUSD Grants Control Of Several Campuses To Outside Groups

Despite a demonstration by members of the teacher's union, the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District Tuesday voted to roughly follow the recommendations of their superintendent and give some outside groups control of several campuses.

A few exceptions were switched to other campus operators, including Barack Obama Global Preparatory Academy, Esteban Torres High School and Griffith-Joyner Elementary School. But the board mostly followed the recommendation by schools chief Ramon Cortines that 12 underperforming schools and 24 new schools be run by seven charter-school operators, three educational development organizations and 31 district-based teams that were backed by the union.

"Today we are no longer the insular institution we once were,'' said board member Yolie Flores Aguilar. "But more important, what today represents is that mediocrity is not OK, and that we place high value first and foremost on quality education for all students."

Dennis Romero has worked on staff at several magazines and newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times, where he participated in Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the L.A. riots. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone online, the Guardian, and, as a
young stringer, the New York Times.